


A Study in Red

by Corvus_Maxim



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Bad Flirting in Russian, Espionage, F/F, F/M, Fraternities & Sororities, Questionable Use of Pledge Paddle, Sarcasm as Flirting, Tags to be added, Vengeful C/Os, google translate russian
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-12
Updated: 2018-09-14
Packaged: 2019-07-11 07:30:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15967625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corvus_Maxim/pseuds/Corvus_Maxim
Summary: Rey is a CIA analyst sent undercover in her old sorority to help foil a bomb plot brewing at the university. Kylo is her brash and awkward Russian Tutor and Doctoral Candidate that does not have time for this. Cut off from friends and associates at home, Rey tells the story of her assignment through letters to an unknown reader and mission reports back to her CO. Growing increasingly frustrated by Kylo’s apparently innocent meddling and a stalling investigation, Rey dives deeper into the pasts of those around her and discovers she’s in way over her head.





	1. Chapter 1

I signed up for this. I totally fucking signed up for this. That’s what was going through my head as I stood in my standard-issue white pumps and robe. No, I’m not in a choir, cult, or any of the other things you might be thinking of. It’s worse, or better, depending on who you ask. I’m in a sorority. Specifically, I’m in the chapter room of the sorority I pledged as a freshman in college almost 10 years ago, and despite going Alumnae almost 6 years ago, I’m here as an active initiating the newest pledge class as if nothing changed. Let me tell you, I never imagined joining the CIA as an analyst post-grad school would lead me back here. See, the reason I’m currently sweating through Spanx, a white dress, and the aforementioned polyester robe is because six months ago, someone clicked the red button labeled “Report Threats” at the top of the CIA webpage, and it got kicked all the way to the office in Austin where I worked as a mid-level analyst. That someone left a cryptically-worded message about a baby terrorist cell growing, out of all places, College Station, Texas, Home to Texas A&M University. Now, the CIA gets dozens if not hundreds of these types of reports per day, so it’s not as though someone saw the words “Terrorist Cell” and hit a panic button somewhere deep inside Langley. It got carefully reviewed by pool after pool of analysts, before coming sliding across my desk at Domestic Affairs. The first time I read it, I honestly thought Amilyn, my CO, was just yanking my chain. Like I said, we get tons of these every day and it’s not uncommon to forward some of the weirder ones around the agency just to lighten the ever-present tension. To be fair, whoever wrote it had quite the flair for dramatics. The exact text read, “Something is rotten in the Station of College. The Avenues of Aggies, for all their love of red, will soon run with it as they run with water after a maelstrom. Like the Bonfire, sparks will leap for the sky as all who can see will tremble in the wreckage of precious tradition.” Like I said, wild. It got kicked around our office for a bit as command tried to decide how best to tackle an apparently credible threat. Unfortunately, whether they meant to or not, the anonymous tipster gave everyone pause by mentioning the Bonfire, something that involves almost all of the undergrad student body. Unwilling to risk blowing what could be 50,000 civilians to hell, Command hatched a plot to send various agents undercover on every level of the university, at every angle. That’s how I ended up where I am now, pretending to be just another wide-eyed undergrad just over drinking age and blissfully unaware of the world outside the campus walls. In reality, it’s kinda my fault. I still wear the pendant all my sorority sisters got at initiation, a simple gold hexagon on a thin chain. I also have some pictures from weddings and Pledge Class Reunions up around my cubicle, a few doing our hand sign with my erstwhile sisters. Our head analyst, Kaydel Connix, would always poke fun at me for hanging on to my college days too tightly whenever she saw them, but I really just kept them up because they were a reminder of my first real family. Growing up as a foster kid, you tend to get attached to the first people who accept you and swear to support you through good and bad, so I took her gentle ribbing with a smile and teased her right back for her copious amounts of puppy photos on her desk. Kaydel loved nothing more than her dog, and it showed. When it came time to place people in their individual stings, Amilyn casually mentioned greek life and Kaydel “helpfully” volunteered that I had been in a sorority, and Texas A&M did, in fact, have a rather large active chapter of it. Fast-forward another two months to early August, and I loaded up “my” car (kindly donated by a doomsday cult with auto-related fixations that we took down in 2017) with dorm accouterment and moved into Kappa Chapter of Chi Omicron Psi, affectionately known as “Chi Psi” on campus. That brings me here, to the chapter room, initiating some fresh-faced women almost 10 years my junior. And that’s where I’ll leave you for now, but keep going to my next letter once you find it and I’ll spill the beans on everything that happened between move in and now. It’s all too much to fit in just one letter. 

EXI,  
Kalogria Rey


	2. Chapter 2

If you’re reading this, you’ve found the necklace I left for you. Congratulations on your excellent snooping skills. As promised, some details from before:

The head of our office, Leia, loaned me her husband for the day to provide some much-needed credibility to my cover. She offered to come along as well, but Han and I assured her we’d make due. We call her “the General” for a reason; everyone knows she hates to leave her post. Han had quickly become one of my favorite people in the realm of the office since our first meeting at an office “Winter Holiday” Party. Leia, being Jewish, enforced a strict code of tolerance and equal celebration for all major holidays. As a result, that led to us playing some weird games at the aforementioned parties. Always held at her sprawling mansion, they were the stuff of legends. Han and I were both of the quieter types, content to merely observe the shenanigans rather than participate. He was a veteran pilot, having left the military shortly before Leia joined politics for the private sector. Han would tell stories of his military days, but would always get strangely mum about the times afterward. It was common knowledge that some of his dealings had been on the darker side of grey, regarding legality, and that Leia had had to pull strings more than once to get him out of hot water. Han had the grizzled air of all war veterans, men who have seen the far sides of humanity and lived to tell. Some of the cheekier staff liked to refer to him as “404: Emotions not found”, but I understood his dry humor and penchant for observation rather than participation.   
Han and I made the drive in good time, joking the whole way about driving literally down memory lane. Han maintained a security clearance, so I freely shared my new Identity with him, all contained in an unassuming manilla envelope. I knew what I would find inside when I picked it up from Amilyn, leaving behind my phone, keys, wallet, and effectively my life in an effects bag. Ami assured me that she would take care of it for me, and we both understood this to mean that should anything happen, it would be delivered to my next of kin, or otherwise returned to me upon my assignment completion. I felt good about it as I powered down my phone, thinking, “how dangerous can this be?”   
I knew they would’ve sent someone more qualified for field work if it had been anything more than reconnaissance and light infiltration. In a way, I had been right, but in another way, I had been very, very, wrong.   
All in all, I had been pleased with the load out the agency had provided. I had filled out a manifest of what I thought I’d need, down to the finest details like stickers for my laptop and hangers for what would hopefully be a nicely-sized closet. One perk of going under as a sorority girl at an SEC school was that I was given a generous budget for “disguise and coordination,” which in this particular case meant high-label everything. Ami had handed me a shining blue credit card with my (fake) name on it and told me to “use discretion, but not too much,” all with a playful wink.   
I wouldn’t consider myself terribly girly, and it’s been a while since anyone referred to me as “srat,” so I found myself sometime later at a sprawling shopping undoubtedly with Kaydel and Rose, another analyst in our department. We all squealed like the sorority girls we were making out to be as we drifted through and purchased designer handbags, dresses, and everyday wear for me. Ami informed me that the chapter knew I was coming and had added me to all the appropriate Facebook groups and group chats in preparation. This led me to a momentary aside, wondering how the hell command had pulled that off with Chi Psi headquarters. After too much thinking about it, Kaydel kindly reminded me that that was not my job and that I should get on with shopping.   
Another thing we had to shop for specifically was that honored and occasionally feared gauntlet of Sorority membership: Rush Week. Much like my old chapter, I had been emailed a dress code powerpoint by a somewhat bewildered but very friendly VP of Membership, a girl named Taylee Dominic. Each slide of the powerpoint outlined the rules for dress on each day of rush, down to what kind of heel the shoes had to have and what tone of jewelry and how much we were allowed to wear. I look back fondly on my old chapter’s rush weeks, but they had been much lower-key than this. Kaydel, having never been in a sorority, was struck in abject horror at the military-like precision in planning, while Rose, an alumna of a similarly strict chapter, took it all in stride. We blew through the shopping center like an increasingly well-dressed cyclone, matching color schemes and dress silhouettes like our lives depended on it. After Kaydel’s third round of complaining, Rose quietly reminded her that this was for an assignment, and that lives were, in fact, at stake. From then on, our shopping was just as frenzied, but a touch soberer, and I felt less giddy about all my purchases. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to keep any of it.   
Receipts in hand, we returned to the office in Downtown Austin to present our horde for inspection. Everything would have to be cataloged and filed away for official records before I could take any of it anywhere, so we left the bags and packages with all of our paperwork for the force of what was mostly interns and some low-level grunts to work through the weekend on. I did feel bad for them, as I was one of many agents going undercover on this specific assignment, and therefore providing only a fraction of many, many items, amongst a group of other people with just as much baggage for cataloging. Despite my very junior status, I did get a bit of precedence over other agents, however. This was in no part because of me, but the fact that i was one of a handful working against a deadline. When I had activated my cover cell phone and logged into my email, amidst a flurry of orientation emails and registration alerts had been my move-in information for the chapter house. Being a junior, I got to move in before the sophomores, but after the seniors. This landed my due date on a Tuesday, right at noon.   
Han, kind soul that he was, drove my cult-turned-college-ready Toyota 4Runner and all of my cover right down to the campus with me riding shotgun. After reminiscing about both of our college days, he had asked me what exactly they’d drafted up for me as cover. After sheepishly admitting I hadn’t looked, I rifled through my new designer tote bag and pulled out a driver's license, insurance card, passport, and bio that had DESTROY UPON ARRIVAL in block letters across the top. The driver's license, though bearing my (horrible) picture, informed me that it belonged to Reyna Hart, age 21, born November 26th, 1997, height, 5’6, eyes: brown, hair: brown. It gave my address as the location of one of Han and Leia’s condos in Corpus Christi, which had recently been transferred to a couple by the (made up) names of Cassandra and Jim Hart. Our office had had a good laugh at the bastardized names of two field agents that were also going under with me, Jyn and Cassian Andor. Both in their mid-fifties, they were going under as professors in Electrical Engineering and Leadership studies, respectively. We’d had an in-office ceremony, where they proclaimed “parentage” of me, and Jyn had hugged me and told me she was proud. Cassian, ever the light-hearted jokester, had given me a card with “baby’s first Field Assignment” written by hand over a platitude about a first birthday. While it was all in good fun, it did touch me to have such respected figures in the office pay me so much attention, and I carefully packed away the card in my apartment for my roommate to keep safe.   
As I filed my new credit cards, license, and other things into my new wallet, Han quizzed me on Reyna’s backstory. Having already been an initiated member of Chi Psi, Headquarters had relented to me returning to “active” status, albeit under alias. While I had been a member of Pi chapter at my true alma mater of Berkeley, Reyna was transferring from a smaller chapter that had had its charter revoked in the spring, after an unfortunate leak of the “house rules” board at the University of Richmond. Some of these aforementioned rules included “blackout or backout” and “spitters are quitters,” or my personal favorite of “Puke and rally!!!”. Her reasoning was that she had just wanted to be closer to “mama and daddy” in Corpus Christi and that the commute was just “too far.” To be fair to Reyna, the drive to Richmond was a bit of a bitch. That alone cemented my story fairly well, and the limited size of Rho Chapter at Richmond meant that the likelihood of any of my new sisters blowing my cover was slim to none. It helped that Rho chapter was known to be wilder, with low emphasis on sisterhood. We had gotten a few intelligence reports that many of the girls didn’t even know each other by name.  
Meanwhile, Kappa Chapter had a well-manicured grip on the social scene that it didn’t seem interested in loosening any time soon. To further avoid any potential crossing of lines, Reyna had attended international boarding schools all her life up until college, when she had decided she wanted a more “casual” post-secondary education. With a major in Communications and minors in Fashion and Public Relations, Reyna dreamt of working for big names in fashion as a media manager and event coordinator. Han howled with laughter as I read all of this off, my stomach sinking lower and lower as I shuffled to my class schedule, lovingly set up for me by Kaydel and Amilyn. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays I had Media Relations 321, followed by space for lunch and then Conversational Russian 300 and an elective of “Barre Workout.” I audibly growled at Russian, it was my least favorite language, and while I was proficient at it, I would actually have to work at doing well in a 300 level class. Tuesdays and Thursdays my classes were Art History, “Writing for the Digital Age,” and, of course, a 3-hour textile design studio/lecture. Oh yes, Amilyn would be getting a strongly-worded mission report from me, with a special adage just for Kaydel too.   
Beneath my class schedule was the pride and joy of our documents department, Reyna’s passport. Even though I had only gotten a passport when I joined the agency, Reyna’s had collections of port-of-entry stamps dating back to her eighteenth birthday. She was magnificently well traveled, with stamps from Turks and Caicos to Scandinavia to South Africa. In reality, I had done a fair bit of traversing for the agency, but nothing near as exotic as this. As I shuffled all of my documents into my purse, shredding and giving to Han for combustion later all of the sensitive ones, he informed me I needed to “brat up.” We were getting ready to pull in to the long drive of the house, and my cover had to snap in to place without so much as a glimmer of the real me. Han parked behind a line of other SUVs and looked over at me, eyebrows raised as if to ascertain my readiness. Taking a deep breath, I flipped down the visor to check my lip gloss, another new addition to Reyna’s facade and nodded at him. “Let’s foil some terrorists.”  
Move in was, in retrospect, much smoother than I anticipated. I had used Reyna’s brand-new, carefully constructed facebook to reach out to my intended roommate, another junior named Jessica Pava. We had messaged back and forth a few times, with her being (rightly) curious about the “transplant” girl. I knew what Reyna was doing was highly unusual, and Kaydel had been drilling me on answers to every possible question since it had been decided I would be going under. Of course, it did help that Rho chapter didn’t exist anymore, and I had a great explanation as to my leaving. I didn’t look like a partier by any stretch, and the agency had me slated to be almost 22, so I couldn’t have done too much damage at house parties. I mean, as I recall, who goes to a house party after they’re legal? What’s the point?  
Another thing I recall from college is what a bitch it is to move in. I had asked around for any recollected move-in hacks from the newest hires, and the best answer I got was to use large plastic totes and garment bags, so that’s what I had done. I was pleasantly surprised, however, when upon exiting the car I was approached by a couple of young men in fraternity letters. I knew that some houses hired them on as servers and busboys for meals, but I silently praised whoever thought to use them as grunts for move in. Han was certainly thrilled that he didn’t have to navigate halls with my bulky totes, and gladly gestured to the slowly-opening boot and told them to “go nuts, kids.”   
I admit I fully capitalized on Reyna’s supposed vapidness, only carrying my bag in one hand and my phone in another. Leading my caravan of frat boys to the second floor, I stopped in front of room 210, the door already slightly ajar and voices floating from within. Pushing onward, I walked in and had to use every bit of my smash-and-grab field agent training to keep my jaw from hitting the floor. This room was not only huge; it had two full-size beds in addition to a twin-sized bay window daybed. The walls were a chic, pale peach, smooth and spotless and obviously freshly done. A chocolate-brown carpet rounded out the room. However, one side of the room had a thick white fur rug next to the bed already. Internally i made a note that I might have to place an Amazon order for more stuff if this was the tier i had to meet. I was scanning my side of the room as a small, olive face topped by black hair popped out from behind the left-hand bed with a squeak. “Hi! Oh, wait, sorry.”   
The petite girl lunged across the bed to hit pause on her phone, which had been the source of the voices. Startled, I realized I recognized the voices from my typical morning commute. “Was that The Daily podcast?”  
“Yes!” Her face lit up with joy. “You listen to it?”  
“Every morning. It’s good to ease into the day.”   
I technically wasn’t lying, as I did like to wake up with news podcasts back in Austin. The girl almost tripped herself trying to scramble up to shake my hand, a formality that I was pleasantly surprised to encounter in such a chic environment. “You can just drop those here, boys.” She gestured to the train of boys behind me, bearing totes and bags and looking somewhat askance.   
I stepped aside to let them file into the room and deposit their burdens on the ground near my desk. I nodded to them in thanks with a small smile as they filed out, with the last one showing an ounce of balls and flashing me a quick smile back. He wasn’t unattractive, with wavy dark blond hair and broad shoulders. Han, suddenly taking his role as my dad seriously, glowered at him as he filed out after his friends. Deciding to play along, I called, “thanks, boys!” in my most flirty coed voice.   
Han shot me a glare underlined with barely-concealed mirth as the door shut behind them just as the girl cracked into laughter. “Oh, I love Phi Gams. You never know what you’ll get.”   
“PGAs? Yeah, they’re an interesting lot.”  
I remembered the frat she was talking about, Phi Gamma Alpha. I recalled them being pleasant, but rather wild when it came to parties. “Oh, is that what they’re called where you’re from? Richmond, right?” The girl asked.   
“Yeah, couldn’t get out fast enough,” i said with a laugh. “You must be Jessica Pava?”  
“That I am. Reyna?”  
“Just Rey is fine.”   
I had no intentions of making this harder for myself, and going by my actual nickname was going to cut down on me missing my cues from people exponentially. “I’m the dad. Soloman Hart.”   
Han stepped forward over a box and stuck a hand out, which Jessica met with a firm shake. “I hoped so, otherwise there’d be a strange man in the house.”  
Han chuckled just as his phone dinged in his pocket. “Ah, that would be the car. Call if you need anything, kid. Your mom and I are only a few hours out.”  
Han met my eyes as he said this, his expression asking if I was ready to fly solo. “I’ve got it handled, dad. Thanks for driving down with me. Give mom my love.”  
Han nodded and patted my shoulder as he turned to leave. With a wave behind him he was gone, and I was closing the door behind him. Turning back to Jessica I put my hands on my hips and surveyed my boxes. “Oh boy. This may take a minute” I said, partially to myself.   
Jessica, bless her heart, thinking I was talking to her, snapped her head up and met my expression. “Not with the two of us it won’t. We’ve got until 4 to get everything settled, and I’m done anyway.”   
I met her determined face with a smile and reached for a tote. “Ok, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Keep following the clues I’ve left. It only gets better from here.   
EXI,   
Kalogria Rey

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! So this is my first story here, and I'm hoping to way expand the chapter lengths as the story progresses. However, due to the formatting of the story, they will still be short, but there will be multiple updates per week and sometimes per day. This story isn't meant to look down on members of the greek community, as I am myself at university and in a sorority. This story is actually an assignment for my creative writing class, so any critiques would be most welcome! As our story starts out, a lot of things may seem confusing and vague, which is intentional. I promise they will be explained later though. Until next!


End file.
